Page 24 of Elemental Hall: Nautica
“Do you have any proof of this nonsense?” Ash demands. “Elemental Mistress Halan, she’s making all this up to deflect attention from the part where they broke the rules by teaming up.”
Darius addresses the elemental mistress. “You would have been monitoring the storm. Presumably, you felt it getting stronger. You felt it focused on one island rather than spreading out across the whole chain.”
Elemental Mistress Halan looks thoughtful. “I felt all of that, yes. But that does not prove that these two students brought it about.”
“Did you also feel the part where the storm almost got out of control?” I ask. I glare at Ash. “Doyourealize that you could have killed half the students on Nautica? Darius and I had to draw the storm down onto us, had to pull it in until it burned out, just so it didn’t wash away idiots likeyou.”
“So you drew the storm onto your own island?” Sybil says, with a cruel smile. “What was it? Did you want to make sure that you and Darius had more time alone?”
“Enough!” Elemental Mistress Halan orders, in a tone that draws silence from all of us. “I will not have my students bickering like this. We do not enforce strict discipline at Nautica, because we are training you to be powerful elementalists, ableto think, able to act as necessary rather than standing in neat ranks, waiting for orders. But if you continue this, Iwillsee you punished.”
I stand there in silence because I don’t dare do anything else.
“Ash, Sybil, there is, as you say, no proof that you did what Sera claims. But do not believe for a moment that you have gotten away with this. I will be watching you, and if you put a foot out of line, you will be expelled from Nautica. Darius, it is not acceptable for you to attack another student. Remember that you are here solely at the discretion of the elemental masters here.”
She looks at me next. “If you did all you claim to have done, then you have saved your fellow students’ lives. They should remember that. Well done. You have passed the challenge. You all have. Sybil, Ash, Darius, come with me.”
She walks off, the three students following in her wake, leaving me standing alone. Although I’m not alone for long. Orion hurries up to me, presumably wanting to fulfill his role, playing the part of a concerned boyfriend.
“Are you all right?” he asks, putting a hand on my shoulder.
“I’m fine,” I assure him. “I’m just tired.”
Tired from being up all night holding off a storm. Tired, too, of people like Ash and Sybil targeting me.
“I can’t believe that anyone would try to kill you,” Orion says.
“I’m telling the truth, Orion,” I snap.
“No, I know you are,” Orion assures me. “I’m just wondering if they were targeting Darius, rather than you.”
I frown. “Because that would be all right?”
“Not all right, but at least I can understand it. Ash lost his brother in an Umbran raid. Plenty of people’s families have been hurt by them. Even now, the rumor is that they’re pushing at the veil of storms, trying to find a way through.”
“That doesn’t make it right!” I snap again.
“I’m just saying, Darius is… well, it’s dangerous to be around him.”
“If it weren’t for him, I would have died last night.”
I realize that people are staring at us, keeping their distance but obviously interested. I can guess what they’re thinking; that this is really about what Sybil said. That Orion is jealous of Darius.
Is he? No, that can’t be right.
“I don’t want to argue with you,” I say.
“I don’t want to argue, either,” Orion agrees. He puts his arms around me. “I’m just glad you’re safe, Sera.”
I look up into his eyes, trying to decide if he truly means it. I don’t know, and I don’t know if I’m truly safe either.
I get the feeling that Ash and Sybil aren’t done with me yet.
Chapter THIRTEEN
The seraphin comes back to me the next day. I’ve been searching for it for so long, and it’s surprising thatthisis the day when it comes to me. Now, so soon after almost dying in the storm, when my emotions are still all over the place.
I am down at one of the beaches around Nautica, working on fine water skills I learned from one of the scrolls in the library. I have jars of water in front of me and I’m working to transmute them into different substances. It is hard, requiring a kind of fine control that is so much more difficult to achieve than summoning a powerful wave or a whirlpool.
